Thursday, July 31, 2008

Salon Hack Job

The intent of Giberson's article is to take PZ Myers to the woodshed for his allegedly inquisitor role in the establishment of science as our state religion. He doesn't like Myers's appeal to unbridled rationality. The simple idea that a Jack Webb "Just the facts, Ma'am" approach will lead to a Glorious Society. The idea that supremely intelligent people of learning, such as Harris, Hitchins, Dawkins, PZ, and PZ's commenters, men and women freed from the yoke of irrational religious preconceptions—scholars such as these will use pure reason to arrive at irrefutable rational consensus on such important topics as the justness of the Iraq war, the utility of torture as a device for extracting intelligence, the legitimacy of eastern mysticism, gun control, and the ethics of animal testing.

Or not. What-ever.

As for the article itself, what a hack job Giberson presented! Let me show you. He wrote:

Myers' confident condemnations put me in mind of that great American preacher, Jonathan Edwards, who waxed eloquent in his famous 1741 speech, "Sinners at the Hands of an Angry God," about the miserable delusions that lead humans to reject the truth and spend eternity in hell. We still have preachers like Edwards today, of course; they can be found on the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

Unspeakable blasphemy! Slander so vile, thy name is Giberson! Jonathan Edwards was arguably America's greatest theologian. Jonathan Edwards was once named by Encyclopedia Britannica as a America’s greatest scholar. Jonathan Edwards was one of America's greatest preachers and evangelists. To use him as a form of insult is unthinkable. In one paragraph, two sentences long, likening Jonathan Edwards to PZ and to the TBN chuckleheads is just plain wrong!